Thoughts on leashed dogs.

I have been reading the book, "Merle's Door" by Ted Kerasote and am at the chapter called Looser Leash. In it, he details the need for looser leash laws or at least areas where leash free dogs can roam and play. The San Fransico SPCA advocates loose leash laws in its area, stating that:
"Off leash areas are essential to the well being of dogs. Regular off leash play makes for healthy, well adjusted dogs. It burns off pent up energy, builds confidence, improves a dog's social skills, and helps prevent aggressive behavior. Conversely, limiting dog play results in under-socialized, under excersized, under stimulated dogs and often leads to behavior porblem." (could this be talking about people too?) The New York dog advocacy group FIDO states pretty much the same thing. Kerasote even challenges the reader to this thought experiment.
"Put a collar around your neck, attached to a six foot lead. At the other end of the lead is a dog who is at least twice and perhaps four to thirty times your size. Now go to a party, and try to talk with an other human being while your dog pulls at you, barks at you, and, through the leash that connects the two of you, transmits its annoyance, impatience, hurry, and concern, Is it any wonder that there are so many neurotic dogs?

But yet, there were 4.7 million dog bites occuring in the US in 1994 alone. So where is the logic of having more dogs off leash?

Of those bites, 75 percent of the dog bites did not occur between an off leash dog and a pedestrian. As a matter of fact, only 1.1% of the dog bites occured in the outdoors where a off leash dog might be met. Rather, the majority of the bites were in the family home were the bitee knew the biter!! You run a better chance of going to the ER for cutting off your toe with your own lawn mower than you do from getting bit by a dog, leashed or unleashed.

The threat to the public from dogs comes not from supervised free-roaming dogs but from solitary, caged or chained dogs that spend their entire life in what is a red-zone that they call their territory. Cross that red-zone line and you have trouble. Living like this makes a dog depressed and aggressive. What is needed is an area that dogs can be leash free for hours at a time and release this anxiety and spend time with their own. Kerasote claims they need four things. Green space, safety from cars, exercize, and conversation with their own kind. And if you think about it, so do humans. As these criteria decrease in availability, you get stress, depression and psychosis sets in. In humans, we treat it with drugs and what not and wring our hands on how to deal with it. With dogs, we sequester them so that they are virtual prisoners in solitary confinement or we "euthanize" them.

Whether by instinct or accident, I have allowed my dog Gunnar to have a very loose leash from the beginning. I have taken him on as many family vacations as I can, I play with him EVERY day in an open space where he can run, jump and go silly. And while I have worked very hard to teach him to walk on a leash properly, I have let the leash go more and more and now he walks, under my command with out a leash. He is still a dog and has his territory (house and yard), but both in and out of that territory, he is a very well socialized dog with many friends and he has very polite manners. Maybe if more humans got off of their leash, went to a green space that was safe from cars, got a bit of exercize, and conversed with more of their own kind, maybe we would not bite each other so much.

And the next time your local park district is going to make another bare open field into another baseball diamond, step up and suggest a leash free dog park.

TAKE OFF YOUR LEASH!

Later!

The season of Lent.

I am a Lutheran and by most accounts, have never really observed the tradition of giving up something for Lent. But after a discussion with my Pastor a few years ago, I saw the reasoning, logic and devotion that takes place in the practice of giving up something for Lent. The first year I did it, I gave up soda pop... not things like Brisk ice tea or things like that, but soda pop proper. Fizzy caffinated soft drinks. Made it through without too much trouble and discovered that when I could have it again, I really didn't miss it. The next year, I gave up soft drinks, and potato based meals. Again, no problem and really didn't miss it. This year, I will add one more. Candy. I have a sweet tooth that you cannot imagine! I love candy. It is my premium gas for my high octane engine! Any thing that comes in a wrapper, or in a box will be verboten for the next 40 days. This will be tough. Hopefully I will find another fuel to use keep the metabolism up! The sacrifice and challenge will be good for me. I will keep you up to date.

Later!

Shut the frak up...

I have not really had much initiative to blog about anything because frankly, everything I can think about blogging about would just be about ranting or whining and I don't like to do either. There are way too many people bitching and moaning about useless stuff on the web, so I won't add to it. Instead I will remain silent until I find something useful to blog about. I will comment on some things that I could bitch about but will instead will find something positive about them.

I have to pay taxes this year again... but at least it is about 600 buck less than last year!

I continue to lose money in the stocks that I invest in... but I still contribute and have hope.

Winter just doesn't seem to want to let go of my neck of the woods... but at least it is not summer.

See.. this is pointless. Unless you have something really horrible to bitch about, quit being so fraking negative and trying smiling once in a while.

I am tired of all the drama that people are making for themselves. I often tell my son, "You make your own Hell." If you don't like your situation, change it and quit bitching about it. Right now I know so many people that are just doing their damnedest to make their own lives miserable. Try dealing with a dying parent, a mass of close friends losing jobs, and other close friends who are having their marriage exploding in their faces. These are things that can't be controlled. These are real problems.

Despite real troubles that are affecting me, I am going to refuse to bitch. I will handle it and look to the future and smile. I refuse to be unhappy. Life is way to short to mope about and complain... no one is listening anyway.

later!

Service dog!

Gunnar is not really a service dog, but he could be! We visited at the home my dad is staying in while he get therapy and recovers from an amputation. The residents there were incredibly happy and thrilled to have a big friendly dog like him come to visit. One, as you see, even gave him her ice cream. Gunnar was in olfactory heaven with all the scents in the place... especially after meal time! Gunnar was very well behaved and was friendly to everyone me met. It was a neat experience for everyone.

Later!

Cool things about dogs...

My dog Gunnar recently celebrated his 3rd birthday on the 14th (valetine's day!) and I was just thinking about how cool dogs are. If you have never owned one, I feel sorry for you. You are missing out on a special relationship that you can never find in any other person, place or thing. So, here is a short list of some of the things that I think are cool about dogs. If you would like, comment and add it to the list!

1. Everyone who has owned a dog, had the priviledge of having the best dog in the world.

2. Dogs can pee and poop outside and no one, (mostly) really cares much.

3. Dogs don't care what you do for a living, what you are wearing or what you look like, as long as you are alive and you are with them you are a god in their eyes.

4. Dogs always forgive, unlike most humans.

5. Dogs think everyday is an adventure.

6. Histories are full of examples of the fidelity of dogs than of friends. (Alexander Pope)

7. A dog never questions who he is or what he is all about. He just knows.

8. Every dog is decended from wolves... that is cool. It even helps make Chihuahuas cool in a very small way.

9. God spelled backwords is Dog.

10. Dogs can sleep anywhere.

YIKES!!!!

Found this on the Financial News from Yahoo!

daaanng... Thing really are coming to an end...

Businesses that may not survive 2009...


Krispy Kreme. (KKD; about 4,000 employees; stock down 50%). The donuts might be good, but Krispy Kreme overestimated Americans' appetite - and that's saying something. This chain overexpanded during the donut heyday of the 1990s - taking on a lot of debt - and now requires high volumes to meet expenses and interest payments. The company has cut costs and closed underperforming stores, but still hasn't earned an operating profit in three years. And now that consumers are cutting back on everything, such improvements may fail to offset top-line declines, leading Krispy Kreme to seek some kind of relief from lenders over the next year.

The Audacity of Fame...

In the news recently we have two famous people who have done some things that I would call (in order) frakin' stupid, and the other arrogant.

Michael Phelps: Seen in a photo smoking dope from a bong. The stupid, stupid ass. Here he is, America's sweetheart and he proves to everyone that he ain't no better than some stoner surfer, he just has better endorsement. Smoking the dope is one thing, and for that I will have no respect for him. (Drug use is a major issue for me... drug use = loser in my book) Secondly, did he even think about this... after all the times that his teachers and what-not told him he would amount to nothing because of his ADHD or something like that, and the mother that would not beleive them and set him on a course to greatness. Then he goes and done something boneheaded like this... I guess he just proved all those people right. He would turn out to be a loser. Again, this just goes to prove my theory that most professional atheletes are over-medicated, over-paid, over-sexed assholes that do not need our adulations... and have no right being role models for our kids.

Christian Bale: Verbally lambasting a movie crew member on the set of Terminator; Salvation. Have you heard this diatribe? Holy Crap! He is one angry individual who needs to take himself a little less seriously. Afterall, he is only Christian Bale, the so-so actor of action movies. He must think he is someone very important to make the threats that he made to this crew member. Like most actors, because of the praise and recognition we give them -- for ACTING -- they begin to believe that they are entitled or deserve special treatment, or worse, think we really want to hear their original thoughts. I have not heard many actors say anything really intelligent on their own. Most of what they say has been written for them, so all the good stuff is made up anyway. Chill out Christian Bale. Go have a drink...

I have heard this alot lately since the election... "Too Big to Fail..."

You are never "too big to fail." Unless you forget that. These guys seem to have.

Later